


The Education of Dipper Pines

by appending_fic



Series: Fire and Wonder [3]
Category: Brave (2012), Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Gravity Falls, ParaNorman (2012), The Princess and the Frog (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coming of Age, Discussions of sex, Education, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Magic, Puberty, Relationship Discussions, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-03-18 06:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3559082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/appending_fic/pseuds/appending_fic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a witch who's taken up residence in the woods of Gravity Falls (she insists she's just a woodcarver). Dipper is intrigued, despite Grunkle Stan's warnings to the contrary, and the skepticism of his friends and family. But all this seems like a welcome distraction from thinking too much about his feelings, or worse, his hormones, even if it will end up getting him turned into a bear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dipper had been back in Gravity Falls for less than an hour when Grunkle Stan told him about the witch.

“Look, she claims she’s a wood-carver, and I agreed to buy a whole bunch of her knick-knacks to pass off as magic tokens, but she’s a witch, and I want you to stay away from her.”

“But what if-”

“Shut up, Dipper. There is no reason you need to go over there. Okay?”

Dipper had scowled and muttered at Grunkle Stan. He had, however, vented much louder and at great length to Norman on Skype that afternoon.

“And what if I need to track down someone to undo a curse, or - or I need a carving of a bear?”

When Dipper looked at the screen, Norman had his hand over his mouth, a clear sign he was trying to keep Dipper from seeing him laugh. “A bear?”

“Yeah.” Dipper fell back onto the bed and let his hands drop. “I saw her stuff. It’s all bears. Everything she makes has bears all over it.”

Norman frowned thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t think it was a good idea to ask her for help, then. You’d probably end up turned into a bear.”

“Well, what if that’s what I need?”

Norman shook his head, but he was smiling at Dipper. “Just wait until I get there before you make any big changes. I’m not sure what I’d do with you having that much hair.”

Dipper felt his whole face heat almost immediately. “Shut up,” he muttered.

Norman’s smile turned into a smirk. “What’s wrong? It’s not like I haven’t seen you shirtless plenty of times.”

“Oh god, Mabel could come in any minute!”

“And we’re just innocently talking about your chest,” Norman replied, winking.

Dipper leaned close to the screen and whispered as urgently and quietly as he could manage, “You know very well you’re not talking about my chest innocently. We - you - _you put your hands all over it_!”

Norman’s grin widened. “Do tell.”

“Didn’t you hear me? Mabel could be back any minute!”

Norman’s image leaned back, and Dipper could see clearly Norman was spread out _on his bed_ , arms folded behind his head. “So, go quick.”

“Oh look Grunkle Stan needs me I’ll call you tomorrow love you bye!” Dipper slammed the laptop closed, and sat there, quietly, panting. He didn’t even know what was contributing the most to his flustered state - the embarrassment at remembering the makeout session they’d had before Dipper left for the summer, the memory of Norman’s hands on his chest and stomach enough to send him into a confusing mix of arousal and terror; the constant fear that everyone who looked at him just _knew_ ; Norman’s insistence on _talking_ about it; or-

Oh, god.

Dipper ran the last few moments of their conversation through his head.

Oh, god.

He’d said-

He’d-

Dipper bolted from the room, down the stairs, and collided with Waddles, who was sprawled just inside the Employees Only area of the Shack. “Mabel! I need you it’s an emergency!”

Wendy stuck her head through the door after a minute, looked Dipper up and down, and said, “She just headed out to Grenda’s. Is there something I can help you with?”

“I JUST TOLD NORMAN I LOVED HIM!” Dipper slapped his hand over his mouth; he could hear movement out in the gift shop, but thankfully no one seemed to see need to react to his freakout. Well, except for Wendy, who dropped down and began rubbing a hand up and down Dipper’s back.

“Breathe, dude. Deep breaths. Hold them for a second, let it out.”

After a few minutes, Dipper was almost certain he wasn’t about to pass out.

Wendy rocked back so she was crouching in front of Dipper. “Now, spill.”

“What?”

Wendy rolled her eyes and grabbed Dipper in a headlock. “You can’t spring a big announcement like that and not dish. What’d he say?”

“I don’t know! I was hanging up and it just - slipped out.”

“Wow.” Wendy dropped down so she was sitting, now. “Okay, well, panicking isn’t going to help anyone. You gotta come up with a game plan, though. Basically, you can wait for him to make the next move, take the bull by the horns and try to discuss it, or take the risky move of pretending nothing happened. I...would not recommend the last one.”

Dipper looked up at Wendy; she shook her head. “That’s a story for another time. But I gotta tell you something, Dipper. You wear your heart on your sleeve; if this comes as a surprise to your ghost whisperer, I’ve got to question his judgment.”

“Yeah, but-” Dipper took a deep breath. “What if he doesn’t feel the same way? What if he does? I’m fift - almost fifteen! Are we going to have sex? What if I - I’m - I-”

“Deep breaths, Dipper!” Wendy snapped, and Dipper shut his mouth quickly, although he was still breathing too quickly. She put a hand over her face, sighing. “Jeez, I am not ready to have this conversation with - anyone. Plus I think I’ve used up my break back here. Just...okay. I’m gonna leave you with this right now. _No one_ should make you think you have to have sex. If you and Norman do it, it should be because both of you want it. So why don’t you grab some chips and set down in front of the TV or something and me or Mabel will be along eventually to talk you down?”

Dipper nodded jerkily. Wendy gave him a quick hug before jogging up to the door to the gift shop. She paused before stepping through. “Don’t go wandering off, okay, Dipper?”

“Sure.”

He didn't know why people always told him to stay put. He wasn't the one who wandered off during fairs and found pigs, or dated boys that turned out to be a bunch of gnomes. Mabel found him an hour later glaring at Wheel of Fortune. He had spent that hour trying, and failing, to determine if there was a way being turned into a bear would help his current situation.

"Dipper, my twin telepathy alerted me to your plight!" Mabel announced, planting herself between Dipper and the television.

"Wendy called you when her shift ended," Dipper corrected.

"You're ruining the mystery, here, Dipper," Mabel complained. She dropped onto the large easy chair with Dipper, squashing him until he shifted over to allow them both - barely - enough room to sit. "Now. What's going on?"

"Wendy didn't tell you?"

Mabel shrugged. "She said it was an emergency. Said it was all hush-hush."

Dipper felt a wave of affection for Wendy. He sometimes forgot how cool she was. If Dipper didn't want something shared, she'd take it to her grave.

"I...sort of accidentally told Norman I loved him."

Mabel punched Dipper in the shoulder. "Ow! What was that for?"

Mabel gave Dipper a nasty glare. "You shouldn't toy with Norman's emotions like that."

"What are you - oh, for goodness sakes, Mabel. I don't mean I accidentally said something I didn't mean. I just...maybe sort of said something I _did_ mean that I didn't mean to say."

"Well, that's loads better." Mabel wrapped her arm around Dipper and dragged him flush with her side. "Sorry for hitting you."

"So...do you have any advice?"

"You don't need advice. You said it. It's out there. There's no way to un-say it without screwing around with time travel again. There is absolutely _no_ way you could pass it off as a joke. There's nothing you can do to change how Norman feels about it or what he decides to do about it. At least not without going all mind-controlly."

Dipper could feel his hopes sink. "That's really depressing."

"What?" Mabel swiveled to give Dipper an exaggerated wide-eyed, open-mouthed look of disbelief. 

"You're saying there's nothing I can do-"

"So there's nothing to worry about!"

"But what if-"

"Boop." Mabel poked his upper lip with his finger; Dipper took the hint to shut up and let Mabel win the argument.

"I'm still worried," he muttered after a minute of watching people clap inanely at a spinning wheel.

"Awww. Look, I'll bet you five bucks he loves you, too, and is just waiting to figure out how to respond. That way, if he doesn't, you have five dollars!"

"Not really helping, Mabel."

Mabel stuck out her tongue at Dipper. "Well, the only way I can actually _help_ is by making Norman love you with all that Master of the Mental Arts stuff, and that seems a little out of character."

"You wouldn't though...would you?" Dipper knew Mabel still got a little freaked out at things that reminded her of Gideon; he suspected that would have soured her on anything like that.

"Well, no. Although, if you asked...I'd probably consider it before someone talked sense into me."

Dipper couldn't help but stare. Mabel was the one who told _Dipper_ to back down. That she'd even consider something like that if Dipper asked...

"Good thing I wouldn't ask, then."

Mabel grinned at him. "Good. Now, there's got to be something better on than this drivel."

"Everything else is Candle Cove," Dipper said, and Mabel's hand jerked away from the remote as if it had burned her.

"Okay, let's stick with Vanna," she said amiably.

Dipper was almost down from his frenzied worrying the next morning. Norman hadn't called, but they'd agreed to call only once per day, at least until Norman got out to Gravity Falls in mid-July. So he was resolutely not worrying about it. He managed to duck out of working at the gift shop and had taken to the woods, wandering aimlessly through a forest he'd grown to know like the back of his hand.

Or had known, anyway.

A little after noon, Dipper realized he was lost. The trees seemed to be leaning the wrong ways, the vegetation was denser than it should have been, and he had even lost track of the sun in the gloom.

He wasn't panicking yet because he'd stepped into areas of folded space before, little pockets of forest that didn't quite line up with the rest of the world. None of them had hurt him yet.

A blue-white light flared into existence about six feet to Dipper's left. When he glanced at it, he saw a sphere about a foot across, and another light popped into being ten feet beyond it. In the absence of anything suggestive of a path out of here, Dipper decided to follow. At every light, another appeared beyond the last one in the chain, sometimes continuing straight, and others diving to the right or left. After about ten minutes of following the lights, Dipper arrived at a hollow just about large enough to hold a cottage, a sturdy wooden cabin decorated with snarling faces. As he drew closer, Dipper realized the faces were mostly statues standing next to the building and masks hanging from the eaves. They showed a particular uniformity in their subject matter; while they were all different, they were all unmistakably bears.

If Grunkle Stan hadn't already warned him, Dipper probably would have guessed himself that a witch lived here.

Given that he was lost in the middle of the woods, Dipper decided that Grunkle Stan would agree he could ignore the prohibitions on approaching the witch’s cabin for the sake of personal safety. Having justified his actions, Dipper approached the front door and knocked.

A short woman with white hair pulled into a messy bun, an enormous, beak-like nose, and almost luminescent golden eyes, pulled the door in, gave Dipper a once-over, and said, “No.” She then slammed the door.

“Hey!” Dipper banged at the door. “No what?”

“I’m not selling you anything and I’m not buying anything!” the woman shouted through the door.

“I just need a little help!”

The woman pulled the door open again and said, “No.”

Dipper slammed his foot into the gap between the door, bruising it when she tried to close it, but keeping a crucial few inches available. “Look, I just need you to point the way out!”

“Nope! Every time someone convinces me to help them, someone ends up getting turned into a bear and I somehow get blamed for it. So if you don’t mind, I’ll just-” She began kicking Dipper’s foot, trying to force it from the door. “Keep - to - myself!” She swung the door wide to give her space to shove Dipper out, and he darted inside.

He _might_ have decided to do something other than just look for help.

Inside, the house was even more crowded with carvings than the outside. Almost every surface that wasn’t a worktable was a carving of a bear. Bears were set in walking sticks, were the centerpiece of clocks, were made into chairs.

And in the center of it all was a bubbling cauldron.

“Well,” the witch said, “In for a penny, in for a pound.” She kicked the door closed with a definite sort of click.


	2. Chapter 2

The witch stepped up behind Dipper and grabbed his shoulders, a friendly touch if it weren’t for her very sharp nails, pressed ever-so-slightly into his flesh.

“So, tell me what you’re here for.”

“I - just want a way back home.” Dipper was beginning to remember why he’d vowed, on occasion, not to go places on his own so much. He wondered if the water thing would work on this witch as well as it did the one in The Wizard of Oz.

“Not so, boyo. The wisps won’t lead someone here who doesn’t want to be here. Now your uncle wanted a few new trinkets to sell in his store. But you, you’re looking for something else.”

“I want to be a witch,” Dipper blurted.

The witch rocked back, cackling. “I’m not a witch, boy. I’m a woodcarver.”

“But you’ve got Willow-Wisps leading to your door, and you live in the middle of folded space!”

“It’s Gravity Falls, boy. If you want to set up shop somewhere normal, this is the wrong township.”

“Grunkle Stan said you were a witch.”

“And he’s never lied to you or been wrong?”

“Well...didn’t you say everyone you try to help gets turned into a bear?”

“Coincidence?”

“What if I told you I just...knew?”

The witch circled Dipper slowly, her gold eyes narrow and assessing. “And what makes you just...know, Dipper Pines?”

Dipper took a deep breath, aware that this was a test. What kind, he didn’t know, much less what a correct answer might be. “There’s something strange with the light outside, and you built a house in folded space without the ceiling being in the basement, and that broom’s been sweeping up without anyone touching it since I got here.”

The witch glared at the offending broom, which froze in place before falling to the ground, as any good broom should. When she turned back to Dipper, though, she was smiling. “Point. So tell me, what makes you want to be a witch? I’m sure it’s not the snappy dress code or the skin care products. Maybe you’re looking to pick up chicks?”

“That’s...not exactly my priority.”

“Ooh hoo hoo!” The witch chortled at Dipper’s blush, pinching at his cheeks. “There’s a story, there, I think. But come on. Tell. No one’ll teach you if you can’t give a reason.”

Dipper took a deep breath. He was so used to secrets, things he uncovered or had to keep from others, things he kept hidden to protect himself. He steeled himself. “I’ve been delving into the mysteries of Gravity Falls. More and more, I’ve been finding things that are dangerous. To me. To my family. To everyone. I need something more than Mabel’s and Norman’s talents. I need something more than my wits.”

“Feeling overshadowed by your friends?” the witch inquired. “You wouldn’t want to meet the witch who’d teach you for that reason.”

“No! Someone needs to protect Gravity Falls - everywhere, even - from what’s been happening here. I don’t think we can do it without something more.”

The witch nodded slowly. “Not bad. Not the best, but if we wait for the best, we’d never give you the opportunity to become it."

Dipper’s heart surged. “You mean you’ll teach me?”

“Heavens, no!” the witch laughed. “All I could teach you was woodcarving! No, I think I’ll take a gander at finding someone to teach you. Someone...good, I think. Now, shoo! I’ve got a shipment to finish for your uncle!”

Dipper hurried out of the door, remembering only after he stepped outside that he was still lost. But as soon as he left the witch’s hollow, he found a familiar path, one that would take him back home in five minutes. He spent that walk alternatively bubbling with excitement and worrying about what he’d gotten himself into. He wasn’t going to bother lying to himself that this wasn’t the exact outcome he’d been looking for when he knocked on that door. He wasn’t going to pretend it was probably exactly what Grunkle Stan had been trying to prevent, either (what was the point of being a teenager if you didn’t do things your guardian disapproved of?).

But the past year had taught Dipper a lot about the terror of getting exactly what you wanted, especially when you had no actual idea what it is you were getting.

He made an effort to slip upstairs when he got back, only for Grunkle Stan to catch him and sentence him to the closing shift.

“That’s rough, buddy,” Wendy said, as Dipper took his position in the stupid wolf ears. At least he was allowed to keep his shirt on.

“Yeah, whatever. It’s just a couple of hours.” Dipper waved vaguely at the mostly-empty gift shop. “Plus, it pays the bills. Metaphorically speaking.”

Wendy laughed. “At least you’re not freaking out anymore.”

Dipper shrugged. “Mabel told me there was nothing I could do about it.”

“Surprisingly mature, dude.” Wendy held up her fist, which Dipper bumped obligingly.

“Yeah. And then I got that old witch to agree to teach me.”

Wendy went quiet, her posture tensing as she stared at Dipper. He felt his hackles rise at the sight of her considering how to respond. “It’s not like I’m getting into devil-worship,” he snapped.

“Yeah, I know.” Wendy leant down on the counter, staring down (and Dipper hated he was still shorter than absolutely everyone) at him. “I’m just used to everything in Gravity Falls coming with some terrible twist. It’s got nothing to do with what you want to do; I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“If it helps, I think the worst outcome is that I’d just be me, but with the ability to turn people into bears.”

Wendy narrowed her eyes. “I...cannot think of a single situation where that would improve matters.”

“Well, I never said I’d use it all that often. To be frank, I think that witch is a little tired of it herself. Still, she’s pretty good with a knife.” He nodded at the hand-carved native bear carvings Grunkle Stan had advertised as ‘for a limited time only’.

“Still seems like it might end poorly.”

Dipper shrugged. “We’d work something out. We always do.”

“Heh.” A customer approached, so conversation paused as Wendy checked them out, and Dipper wandered by a browser to push them toward the witch’s carvings. When the browser headed up to the counter, now a customer, Dipper paused, picking up a rough carving of a bear, turning it over in his hands. He wondered what made the witch so fascinated with bears, what made her so insistently a woodcarver. He’d have thought being a witch was enough.

The door slammed open to admit Grenda. She gave the gift shop a once-over. “Is Mabel in?”

“Check the stock-room,” Wendy offered.

Dipper set the bear back on the shelf and joined Wendy at the front, leaning against the counter. “So how about you? Any new hobbies, powers, boys?”

“There are always boys. Any worth talking about? No.” Wendy tossed her head. “Powers? We’re not the X-Men, Dipper.”

“I guess.” Dipper wasn’t sure he agreed with her. It wasn’t just Gravity Falls; he was coming into contact with talented, strange people. Sure, he wasn’t exactly teaching anyone how to control their powers, but something had to be drawing them together. Wendy clearly didn’t see it that way, but…

“Clearly you and me met for a reason!”

“Heh, yeah, so you could get over your desperate heterosexual phase.”

“What? No. You’ve got to know you’re more than that.” Dipper clambered onto the counter and grabbed Wendy’s shoulders. “You’re the first person here I really liked. You’ve saved my life...probably more than your fair share. You never thought I was weird for liking supernatural crap. You like really cool music, and you’re funny and - and just really cool. If you weren’t here, I might have just moped around all summer and never seen any of the amazing stuff in Gravity Falls.”

Wendy squinted at Dipper skeptically. “Okay, now you’re just being-”

“It’s the truth! Look, I was dumb and confused and awash with hormones when we met, but that doesn’t mean you were just someone for me to - pine over. I never thought you were awesome because I liked you; I liked you because you were awesome.”

“Well, I am awesome,” Wendy agreed with a toss of her head, but she let it fall oddly, hiding her face from Dipper. When she looked back up, grinning, there was no sign she’d been anything but smiling. “So I guess it means I’m responsible for everything amazing you’ve ever accomplished.”

“As long as you take the blame, too.”

Wendy wrinkled her forehead as she thought, and at last stuck out a hand. “Deal.”

Dipper shook her hand, and after a beat, they both started laughing. Dipper ended up sitting on the edge of the counter again.

“God, we haven’t hung out in a while, have we?” Wendy asked once they’d both calmed down.

“I guess. I mean, I just got back in Gravity Falls.”

“Yeah, but I’ve been getting radio silence from you for nine months. Remember after your first summer? Half my friends were convinced you _were_ my boyfriend, given how much you posted on my wall.”

Dipper flushed at the memory of that time, desperate to stay in the lives of the people he knew in Gravity Falls. “I’m not very good at multi-tasking,” he offered helplessly.

Wendy snorted. “Don’t tell me you need advice about boys, now, too. Don’t let them take up your whole life, Dipper. Hang out with your friends. Relax. Catch a movie now and again.”

“Maybe,” Dipper allowed, and Wendy slapped the back of his head.

“No maybe, Dipper. I bet Mabel wants to spend more time with you. I know _I_ do. Don’t ignore your boy...just, take a step back every now and again.”

“...Alright.”

Wendy patted Dipper on the head, and then shifted to muss up his hair. “Good boy.”

“Stop it!” He shoved Wendy’s hand away, and straightened the ears; Grunkle Stan would give him hell if he saw them out of place. Wendy took a moment to stare at Dipper. “What?”

She shook her head. “I’ve gotten used to thinking of you as a little kid. I forgot you’ve been growing up. You’re turning into something of a hottie.”

Dipper’s stomach flipped. “Really?” No one had ever called him a hottie before - Norman seemed to settle on ‘cute’ more than anything, and before that, people mostly called him weird.

Wendy shrugged. “I mean, hot for a fourteen-year-old-”

“Almost fifteen!”

“Yeah, that.” Wendy smirked at Dipper. “I mean, once you get that unshaven look going, you’re going to disappoint a lot of girls.”

“You’re just messing with me. I mean, no one around here thinks I’m a hottie. And why should it matter, anyway?”

Wendy vaulted over the counter and grabbed Dipper’s shirt, yanking it over his head in one fluid motion.

“Ah!”

“You see?” she said triumphantly. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it. And you, Dipper, have _got it_.”

“Now I know you’re messing with me.” With Wendy holding his shirt out of reach, Dipper wrapped his arms around his chest to conceal his pale, hairless skin.

Wendy laughed and tugged Dipper’s arms away. “No way. You’re not ripped, but you’ve got something going on here.”

Dipper shrugged, still trying to tug his arms back to cover up. “It’s just some of the exercises those dumb Manotaurs made me do. I thought...well, it helped me save Mabel once, so I still keep them up.”

“What the hell is going on in here? Dipper, put your shirt back on. Wendy, shift’s over. The last thing I need is for someone getting the idea I’m running a peep show starring a fourteen-year-old-”

“Almost fifteen!”

“Fifteen-year-old boy. Whatever those two get up to on their own time, Blubs and Durland would be on my ass so fast - Dipper! Get your shirt on!”

At Grunkle Stan’s final shout, Wendy passed Dipper his shirt, smiling sheepishly. He just scrambled back into his clothing before he spontaneously combusted from the accumulated heat of his blush.

“Sorry, Grunkle Stan.”

“Yeah, if you’re going to take your shirt off again, do it in the safety of your own room. Now close up before dinner.”

“Sure!”

After dinner, Dipper went up to his room; Mabel had beat him, having passed on clean-up to Dipper, and was reading Teenteen Magazine.

“Hey, Dipper, your computer’s been making weird noises.”

Dipper poked at his laptop, calling up the blinking sign that Norman was trying to get in touch with him. He glanced back at Mabel, still reading her magazine.

“It’s nothing.” He shut the computer and crossed over to Mabel’s side of the room. “What are you reading, anyway?”


	3. Chapter 3

Grunkle Stan was wise to Dipper and caught him early, keeping him working the gift shop until Dipper successfully begged off for a lunch break and bolted into the woods.

He quickly realized, however, that without the help of the Wisps, he wasn’t going to find the witch’s cottage. After a moment of pretending to think, Dipper chose a random direction and began walking. This quickly turned out to be a mistake, as Dipper soon found himself as lost as he'd been when he stumbled into the folded space around the witch's cottage.

Once he was certain he was thoroughly lost, Dipper dropped down onto the ground next to a drooping willow...and kept dropping.

He plunged downward, through the apparently solid ground and underwater. When he struggled to the surface, it was in a blind panic. He flailed for some grip, and, finding only water around him, thrashed harder.

"Land sakes, child, let yourself calm a spell." Something tapped the top of Dipper's head. The touch was unexpected enough that it cut into Dipper's panic; he looked up to meet the face of a short woman, dressed in a spotless white dress and sunglasses. Her skin was dark even compared to the dim lighting of their surroundings, and she looked ancient. She tapped Dipper's head with a curved walking stick again. "Have you calmed yourself now?"

Dipper nodded.

"Good. Now reach over a spell and grab onto Juju for me."

Dipper looked over and paused just before his hand made contact with a long constrictor snake. But he saw the snake was clean and gleaming, scales polished to a healthy shine, and grabbed on.

"Go on and climb out; he's not going anywhere."

Dipper did so obligingly, scrambling out of what turned out to be an only vaguely liquid pool of filthy water. He patted the snake, Juju, on the head as he was clear. "Sorry I got mud all over you."

"Don't worry; he's used to helping muddy folks out of quicksand. Now, you sound like someone who needs a bath, or at least some hot gumbo." The old woman turned and strode confidently away, leaving Dipper to run to catch up. He watched the woman carefully, following her step-for-step to avoid another unpleasant surprise. Juju, it seemed, was better at navigating on its own, as the snake wove its way along the ground, pacing Dipper.

In only a few minutes they came to a wooden hut set just above a swampy portion of the woods. There was about enough dry land to get to the door unimpeded, and inside...

The place was bright as day within, and packed full with stuffed animals, skulls, preserved bits of things in jars, and a huge pot bubbling over a fire.

Dipper paused in the door, trying to take it all in while the woman began taking a humming circuit around the room. The longer Dipper stared, the more he was convinced there was something...clean about the displays. Whoever this woman was, she didn't keep alligator skulls round to be creepy, or even because she thought they were neat. The bones, and everything else, were scattered around the room the way Mabel scattered art supplies when she was in the middle of a project. You never knew what you needed, so you tried to keep it all on hand.

"Nice place."

"Oh, don't I know it. But you sound like you mean it." The old woman grabbed Juju and shooed him toward Dipper. "Does he?"

The snake wound its way around Dipper's legs, tongue flicking rapidly (wasn't that how snakes smelled?). At long last it let out a contented hiss and settled down, head resting on Dipper's feet.

“Well. Pull up a seat, then. Anyone Juju likes can’t be all bad.”

“Should I feel flattered?”

“How you feel’s up to you. But I didn’t mean no harm. I just thought you needed a little feeding up. Here.” She scooped up a bowl of something from the pot and handed it to Dipper. “Eat up.”

Dipper stared down at the murky stew. “What is this?”

“Gumbo, boy. It’s got a bit of everything in it.”

Dipper tipped up the bowl and sipped at it; it was spicy and meaty and really, really good. “So do you just sit out here making gumbo for lost passers-by?”

“Nope; it’s just sad having a house without a pot of gumbo on the fire. Plus, when a person comes by with hoodoo problems, they can usually do with a bowl, themselves.”

“Hoodoo? Are you a witch?”

“I’m a mambo,” the woman said.

“Is that a yes, or a no?”

The woman grinned. “Too much for some, not enough for others,” she replied. “You can call me Mama Odie, if you like.”

“And you’re going to teach me how to be a witch?”

She chuckled. “I don’t think you’d take to my work very well. Nah, I came by to chat, take a look at you.” Juju scurried to her side to pull a chair under her as she sat. “Sit, sit.”

Dipper pulled up a stool himself, and continued to sip carefully at the gumbo. He could feel Mama Odie watching him as he did; he tried to ignore it as long as he could, but it was getting a little creepy. “Um, can you maybe stop staring at me?”

“Ahaha, sorry! I’m just trying to get an idea what that old witch saw in you. You’re a nice boy, aren’t you?”

“So it seems.” Dipper set aside the bowl and stood, crossing to Mama Odie. “But if you’re not going to teach me how to be a witch, what are you doing here?”

“You mean, what do I want with you?” Mama Odie stood, holding her walking stick in front of her. “I heard tell you need to be a witch, Dipper. I’m here to see if that’s what you really need.”

“What?”

“I’m something of an expert on the subject, you see.” Mama Odie began to circle Dipper, slowly. “There’s two sides to magic: what people want, and what they need. It’s easy to give people what they want, but that leads to all sorts of trouble. Most people don’t know what’s good for them, so what they want’s a big old mess. It’s much harder seeing what people _need_ , and giving it to them. Lucky I’ve got an advantage in that regard.” Stopping next to Dipper, she slipped off her sunglasses to reveal two clouded, blind eyes. “So let’s take a good look at you.”

She grabbed the sides of Dipper’s head and stared at him, her pale eyes narrowing as Dipper could feel her staring right through him, blind or not. A prickling sensation, beginning at the back of his head and crawling forward, left him feeling oddly exposed.

"Well," Mama Odie said after a few interminable minutes. "It was a nice try, but you're more complicated than I'd hoped." She sighed as she stepped away from Dipper and Juju slithered to a low table to grab a six-inch-tall box about the size of a large hand. "I didn't want to do this; it's a tricky sort of divining, and one easy to get wrong, especially if you don't have any scruples to speak of. But we'll have to try." She reached out as Juju reached her side, grabbing the box from it, and then the snake darted away to shove a table in between the two of them. Mama Odie dropped down just a second after the snake frantically returned with a stool; Dipper grabbed the one he'd taken earlier, settling down uncertainly as Mama Odie set the box down and flipped it open.

Inside was a deck of cards, large enough to just about fit in one's hands, and made of thick cardstock. The paintings on them were stark but strangely abstract; Dipper looked up at Mama Odie's deep concentration, her narrowed eyes, as she held the cards, and realized she must have made them herself.

"Now take the cards and shuffle 'em for a while. Don't worry about doing it fancy, just sit and think on what it is you want, and what it is you need. Give me the cards when you think you're done."

Dipper took the cards obligingly and began shuffling them together, inexpertly scattering cards as he went, requiring frequent trips to the ground to rescue them. He tried to focus on the idea of magic, but his mind kept drifting to Norman, to his recent encounter with the demon king Ravana, and to the vague feeling that Bill Cipher was dragging him into something bigger than he'd ever imagined...

He dropped the stack of cards in front of Mama Odie, feeling a little frustrated he hadn't kept his mind from wandering. "I'm done."

"Good. Now let's see what's hiding inside you..."

She flipped the cards up, scattering them in a simple cross. At the center was three long strokes of black, just off from being parallel and set against a background of blue with a few dark smudges set to the right.

To the left were three bright half-circles with the curved ends down, each surrounded by a blur of peach, brown, or red.

To the right was a thick, dark smear that broke off halfway along the card, with a dark smear above it, tilted and set off to the side. A jagged line of yellow and white just touched the split between the two shapes.

Below the center was a ragged heart speared through with three ruler-straight lines of grey and silver.

And above the center was a card marked by three stars, roughly transcribed by circles and with a sketched arc drawn below each one, in peach, brown, and red.

“Um.” Dipper twisted his head, trying to make sense of all of this.

“Hm,” Mama Odie murmured. “This is a tricky one.”

Dipper squinted, but that didn’t make things any clearer. “Um?”

Mama Odie looked up at him and laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, child. It takes long years of practice to know what to see in things. But let’s take a gander.” She pointed at the center card. “This, here, tells me what’s going on with you right now. Three of Wands. You’ve come a long way, Dipper, leaning on others to help bring you here. You’re looking out to see what you can accomplish yourself. And this, back here,” she murmured, pointing at the card to the left, “Three of Cups. The things you’ve seen. Victories, good times, memories of great accomplishments with those close to you. You’ve got a lot going for you, don’t you?”

Dipper shivered a little at Mama Odie’s words. Of course she was a witch - of sorts - but it was eerie to hear her so easily divine things he hadn’t told her.

“And this is what’s coming, what’s affecting your future…” Mama Odie trailed off, picked up the card, and stared at it. She was silent as she stared, lips moving silently.

“Mama Odie?” Dipper hoped to hell it wasn’t Death. He didn’t need her telling him Death was a symbolic card. He didn’t want to be plagued with worry about who might die on him.

“The Tower. Destruction. An oncoming storm. Something’s to be razed to the ground and something new’s coming after it. I think you might be right, child, about needing something new to help you. Now let’s see if we can get a little good news.”

She pointed at the bottom card. “This is what plagues you, what drives your fears. Three of Swords. Pain, heartbreak, suffering. You worry you can’t keep these away from you. And you’re right, child. But you’re wrong in how you see it. Not everything’s gonna end in heartbreak. Not everything’s going to hurt you.”

She pointed at the topmost card. “You see? This tells me about your potential. Three of Pentacles. If you’ll take the steps, walk the road, you can accomplish great things. It’s a card of hard work, but also great reward.” She paused, staring at the card, before brushing a finger across each of the stars. “It’s the card of the Wishing Star,” she murmured. “The power to get everything you ever dreamed of, if you’ll roll up your sleeves and work for it.”

She sat back, then, nodding at the spread of cards. “Well, now. It looks like you were right to say you need witchery. But I’m only gonna tell you once: it’s work, hard work, and isn’t always pleasant. If you don’t have the stomach for it, now’s the time to back out, because I’m gonna ask some friends to help you out, and none of them like wasting their time.”

Dipper nodded hurriedly. “No, I’ll do all the work!”

“Good.”

Mama Odie made to sweep up the cards, but then paused, tilting her head at them, as if considering. “Child, I wanna ask you to take a look at these cards. Tell Mama Odie if there’s something she missed in this spread.”

Dipper almost protested that Mama Odie was the witch, not him. But he wanted the job, and that meant he was going to have to do it, sometimes.

So he stared at the cards, at the Tower, the Three of Pentacles, the Three of Wands, the Three of Swords, the Three of Cups…

“Three,” he murmured. “It’s all threes. Except the Tower.”

“And what does that mean to you?”

“ _Him._ ”

Mama Odie scowled. “Don’t play with me, child, tell me his name.”

Dipper shook his head. “I don’t want to say it-”

Mama Odie swept up the cards and glared at Dipper. “If you want to be a witch, child, don’t you ever say something like that again. A fear of a name’s a foolish thing. It just gives the thing more power over you, makes it bigger than it really is. _Tell me his name_.”

Dipper felt his hands clench of their own accord, the memory of his run-ins with Bill, his focused interest on Dipper, weighing on him. He took a deep breath. “Bill Cipher. He’s been lurking around me forever - and apparently, it’s my fate to keep being stuck with him.”


	4. Chapter 4

Mama Odie had banished Dipper then, insisting he relax before he met his next instructor. The folded space dropped him back just outside the Mystery Shack, where Soos was fixing a shingle. He waved at Dipper, skidding down the ladder as Dipper reached the entrance.

“Hey, Dipper! Haven’t seen you around much lately. Have you been on secret adventures or something?”

“Not quite.” Dipper sat next to Soos by the ladder. “I’m trying to learn witchcraft.”

“Ooh. Wow. Was not expecting that.” Soos sat down next to the ladder, looking dazed. “Is this one of those play-acting things, or do you have a witch somewhere telling you how to make potions and curses?”

“Neither, actually. I think they’re still testing me. I had a Tarot reading today.”

“What’d it say?”

Dipper shrugged. “That I should be a witch.” He needed to save the revelation about Bill Cipher for Mabel.

“Really?” Soos patted the ground next to him; Dipper joined them. “That sounds a little like a cult, Dipper. Trust me; I’ve been fooled by a few.”

“Well, they didn’t just say that. It was...some of it was personal.” He looked up at Soos, a guileless, cheerful face, and knew he could trust the man to hold this close. “I’m worried too much about not being - not pulling my weight. About getting hurt. About-”

“Jeez, kid, that’s deep. A little dude like you shouldn’t have to worry about stuff like that.”

“But between Bill Cipher and - and everything - I have to!”

“Oh, hey, dude.” Soos ran a soothing hand along Dipper’s back. “Never said you didn’t. Just think you shouldn’t have to. You never should have come here, dude. This place is weird as all get-out, and it’s getting worse.” Soos sighed. “But that’s downer talk. How’re you and your little boyfriend?”

“Urrgh,” Dipper groaned. He fell onto his back, sighing. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Soos rapped the top of Dipper’s head. “Tough, dude. This is a moment for heavy shit. What’s going on with you and the other little dude?”

“I don’t know. I told him I loved him, panicked, and haven’t talked to him in two days.”

“Okay, dude, I’ve had exactly two relationships, one of which was with a creepy computer game, and I am certain that’s dumb. You like this kid, right?”

Dipper laughed shakily. “Obviously.”

“Then _talk_ to him. I mean, maybe he feels the same way. Maybe he doesn’t. But you’re not going to help anyone hiding from him.”

Dipper nodded slowly. The thought of following through on Soos’ advice was terrifying, but he knew in his heart Soos was right. “I...guess.” He pushed himself to his feet, surprised that his balance was uneven when he got there.

“Jeez, I didn’t mean this second. Come on, we’ll go to the arcade. My treat.”

When Dipper stumbled home after a night of pizza, video games, and soda, there was a flashing window on his computer. He stared at it for a minute before taking a deep breath and sitting down. He reached out and pulled up the window.

Norman’s face popped up on the screen. He smiled broadly at Dipper. “Hey! I was ready to call your Grunkle Stan to make sure you hadn’t been eaten by snipes or anything!”

Dipper’s stomach churned uncomfortably with guilt. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

Norman chuckled. “I’m kidding. I actually expected a couple days before you recovered from your freak-out enough to call me back.”

“W - what?”

Norman tapped the screen of his camera. “I know you, Dipper. That little parting gift was completely unintentional, and you’ve spent the last couple of days panicking about it.” He then leaned back, folding his hands behind his head. “Good thing I love you enough that it’s an endearing part of the Dipper Pines package rather than an unpleasant realization about your neuroses.”

“Hehe, yeah - what?”

Norman smirked. “You heard me.”

“I…” Dipper gulped, his throat suddenly dry. “I don’t think I did.”

Norman took a deep breath and leaned in close to the camera. “I. Love. You.”

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Dipper recoiled from the high-pitched sound and fell to the floor. He popped his head up over the chair seat to glare at Mabel, who was clutching the door and staring fixedly at Dipper, eyes impossibly wide and grin stretching across her entire face. Rapid huffs seemed to suggest she was hyperventilating.

“Norman, hold on a second, I’ve gotta make sure Mabel didn’t spring a leak or something.”

Mabel exploded into motion; Dipper had only a fraction of a second to react before Mabel plowed into him, arms latching around him like a vise.

“This is fantastic Dipper! Ohmygod I’m so happy for you eek! Norman!” She launched herself toward the laptop, still grinning. “Norman if you want lockets or promise rings or anything I’ve got a guy and ohmygod does this make you my brother-in-law?”

“I didn’t propose, Mabel.”

“Yet!”

Dipper gave Norman a nervous glance; the other boy rolled his eyes, easing some of the tension in Dipper’s chest. He knew Mabel was just being her normal excitable self, but, well, it could be overwhelming.

“Hey, Mabel, can you maybe let me and Norman talk alone for a while?”

“Ah.” Mabel winked at Dipper. “You need some time...alone.” She paused at the door. “Anyway, you can check under my bed if you need advice or supplies.” The door slammed, leaving the room in silence for a moment.

“Dipper. I know we’re both going to regret this. But I have to know what’s under Mabel’s bed.”

Dipper felt a grin tug on his lips. He’d intended to check anyway, but Norman’s insistence made it feel more justified. He crossed to Mabel’s bed and ducked under it. There was a plastic box next to a stack of binders. He tugged the box out and popped it open.

He then carefully closed the box, shoved it back under the bed, and walked mechanically back to his bed and the laptop. Norman raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Dipper?”

Dipper took a few deep breaths. “I’m not going back under there.”

“What? Why? You’ve been carrying around spare tampons for Mabel ever since she started needing them. What’s-”

“ _She’s got a box of condoms under there_!” Dipper tried to keep his voice down, but he hit a register he’d hoped he’d left behind that spring. “I saw a bottle of - of chocolate-flavored lube, an illustrated guide to - to gay sex, and I think there might have been a - a-” He gestured hopelessly before dropping back and mostly out of Norman’s sight.

“A what?”

“A - a thing. For, you know, sex.”

Norman chuckled. “You’re going to need to be a little clearer with me, Dipper.”

Dipper groaned and grabbed at his face. “A...thing for...putting in...places.”

“...Oh. Isn’t she a little young to-”

“ _So am I_!” Dipper’s heart seized at a sudden realization. “There’s no way she got that on her own. _Wendy_ probably helped her buy it. _Wendy thinks I’m using that_.” He was certain he was hyperventilating. There was no way he wasn’t, the way his heart was racing. “What if Grunkle Stan-”

“Stan did not buy you a dildo, Dipper.”

“Right. Good.”

“Um…do you want to, um, use any of those?”

Dipper pushed himself back up. Norman’s blush ran along his cheeks and nose, and he couldn’t look directly at the camera.

So. They were going to talk about this now.

“Er.” Dipper scratched his arm nervously. “I…” He bit his lip, at a loss for how he could possibly talk about this.

Except.

Soos had said not talking wasn’t going to help anyone. He might not have necessarily been referring to a talk about sex, but it probably applied. He took a deep breath and plunged forward.

“I’m fourteen years old. I think about it all - a hell of a lot. I have embarrassing dreams and fantasies when I’m not paying attention and a boyfriend I could...theoretically enact all of them with.”

“Is that a-”

“ _I’m fucking terrified of it_!” Panting hard, Dipper unclenched his hands from the monitor. “I mean, it’s this whole - whole _thing_ , and it’s - and I - I can’t get it out of my head because I - I love you and it’s supposed to be fun and amazing and…” Dipper fell back again, hitting the mattress with enough force his laptop jumped in response. “I was much more excited about the prospect of nearly being killed by the horrors of Gravity Falls.”

“I’m pretty conflicted about it myself. And...I really don’t need your sister giving serious thought to what we might - or might not - be doing in the bedroom.”

Dipper put his hands back over his eyes. “God, that thought alone…”

“Look, nobody’s going to make us have sex, Dipper. We’re fourteen-”

“Nearly fifteen.”

“Nearly fifteen. We’ve got our whole lives to worry about this. We don’t need to do anything that’s outside your comfort zone. We _definitely_ shouldn’t do anything that gives either of us a panic attack.”

When Dipper raised his head, Norman was giving him a warm smile, the same affectionate expression that had made Dipper fall for him in the first place. Dipper steeled his nerves. “You can...do stuff that’s a - a _little_ outside my comfort zone.” Norman raised an eyebrow. “Like, um, you can...when you take my shirt off and…” He waved his arms vaguely, knowing that if he had to actually finish the sentence, he would combust.

“Ah.” Norman’s smile went a little wicked, an expression that set heat straight through Dipper, a reminder of the parts of him that thought jumping right into this madness was an excellent idea. “Well, I’ve got some summer reading to catch up on before I come out west. I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Dipper said hurriedly. “Of course.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want to wait another three days to talk to you again. Night. Love you.”

“L - love you.”

Dipper closed the laptop and sighed shakily. That had gone...better than he’d expected, although the mixed feelings of stress, giddiness, and arousal were not making it easy. He wondered vaguely if he could wrangle five minutes alone-

“Hey, Dipper!”

Nope.

Dipper smiled weakly at Mabel. “Hey.”

“How’d your talk go?”

“I’m not talking to you about this, Mabel.”

Mabel’s grin widened. “You’re saying there is something to talk about.”

Dipper groaned and grabbed at his head. “Mabel, you are undoubtedly my best friend, and that means it hurts to say this. I’m not talking to you about my love life or lack thereof. Why would you even want to hear about it?”

“I don’t, I guess.” Mabel plodded to her bed and bounced onto it. “I just want to know that you’re happy.”

“I’ll keep you appraised without any gory details,” Dipper replied.

“And tell me if you need any refills.”

“Jeez, no! Where did you get those, anyway?”

Mabel tapped her forehead. “Don’t ask a lady to give up her secrets.”

“Fine, but don’t expect me to rely on you for refills - if I need them, which I’m not confirming I do.”

“Haha, okay, stud.”

“Stop it!”

“Man, you’re no fun.”

“Well…” Dipper took a deep breath. Not talking about this now, it might never come up until he’d been hiding it for years. “Mabel, I’m a witch.”

She snorted. “No, you aren’t.”

“Well, no. But I went out to talk to that old woodcarver in the woods, and she promised to get some friends to teach me.”

“Oh my god, you’re serious.” Mabel swung upright and stared at Dipper. He couldn’t tell if she was happy or angry. “You’re never going to be able to set foot in Blithe Hollow again.”

“I think they repealed their witchcraft laws after the fiasco last February. And anyway, that’s all you have to say?”

“It _is_ pretty cool, as long as you don’t raise the dead again.”

“I did that _once_ , and I apologized!”

Mabel smirked and leapt up to grab Dipper in a headlock. “Well, keep me appraised so I know what new and exciting ways you’ll come up with to endanger our lives.”

“Bluh, fine! Just let me go.”

“Never!”

The night, therefore, ended in a semi-epic pillow fight and Mabel bruising her clavicle, in one of the better days of Dipper’s summer.


	5. Chapter 5

It was a little over a week before another witch showed up. Dipper spent much of that time working the gift shop and as limited-time installations at the Mystery Shack. There was a brief interlude when he tried to keep Mabel from showing Norman pictures of him in that god damn wolf costume with his shirt off, and then several days where both of them were banned from setting foot in the house and had to camp on the parking lot.

And then when Dipper was allowed to access his computer again there was a photograph of Norman in his inbox that he saved at the bottom of three encrypted file trees and then deleted all evidence of its existence.

So, an exciting week.

Dipper decided, when he’d managed to run into no witches in the intervening week, that he’d go for some independent research.

The Gravity Falls Library was not nearly as useful as the Winter Glen library, which benefited from a competent, driven librarian with access to an impossibly vast repository of books. The Gravity Falls Library, in contrast, had unmotivated employees; books of questionable quality, provenance, and veracity; and the raccoon.

Nevertheless, Dipper went in the hopes that if there was anywhere that would have an instruction manual for witchcraft, it would be the Gravity Falls Library.

It was also, however, the exact place you’d expect to find a horse wandering around. Dipper paused at the door and stared at the white horse standing in the biography section. There was a tall woman in a sensible, severe black dress, standing next to the horse. She had several books balanced on the horse’s back and was leafing through another.

No one else seemed to be paying attention; it was irritating that even without the Society of the Blind Eye running around wiping people’s memories, people had a tendency to ignore all but the most egregious violations of common sense.

He wandered over to the shelf and paused. “Excuse me, ma’am? Can you move your horse?”

She looked up from her book, giving Dipper a cool look. “I do apologize. Most people don’t see Binky.” Her expression took on a more piercing, assessing look. “Most people don’t see me when I don’t intend them to.”

Dipper considered pointing out she had a _horse_ in the _library_ , or that he paid attention to _all_ the weird stuff happening in Gravity Falls. Instead, he settled with a shrug. “I did.”

“Yes, you did.” The woman stared at Dipper for a few more seconds, giving him a chance to examine her. She had dark hair arranged in a tight bun, pale, almost unhealthy skin, and piercing blue eyes. Something about her watchfulness reminded him of Norman. “It’s a rare skill, looking at what’s really there.”

“If you live around here, it’s a survival trait.”

She gave him a thin smile. “Most people get along perfectly well without it, I’ve noticed, even in a place like this.” She picked up her other books.

“Are you leaving?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. I needed to show you something, and we can’t very well do it here.” She patted the horse’s back, and it trailed after her as she stepped between the next shelves. After a moment of thought, Dipper hurried after her.

He paused after a few steps. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Susan," she replied.

"Are you a witch?"

She began walking again, and Dipper hurried after her; after a few steps, he realized they'd been walking long enough to hit the children's section set up against the back wall, but the shelves seemed to keep going.

"And what makes you ask that?"

"I've been meeting a lot of witches lately, after the old woodcarver agreed to find me a teacher. You seem a little weird, so I thought you might be, especially because you seemed to be expecting me. Also, we just passed a bunch of twenty-third century issues of Time Magazine, so you're definitely someone out of the ordinary."

Susan stopped and turned, giving Dipper a slight smile, an approving glance or something like it. "She said you might surprise me. You've got a good head on your shoulders, so tell me where you think we are."

Dipper frowned at his surroundings. They looked superficially like the Gravity Falls Library, or, rather, what he expected it to look like. The longer he looked, though, the older and wilder the shelves seemed. And the periodicals from the future...

"The library," Dipper answered.

Susan's face was impassive as she asked, "Which one?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, are we in the Gravity Falls Library, the Winter Glen Library, or the Library of Alexandria?"

"We're in all of them, aren't we? Some sort of...proto-library. Or ur-library?"

"I think calling it the library will do," Susan said mildly.

"Are you a librarian?"

Susan shook her head. "No. And to answer your earlier question, I'm not a witch, either. I'm one of life's natural teachers." Dipper doubted that was it, but knew better than to pry as long as there was the hope she'd teach him. "But now that you know we're in...the library, I wonder if you could get us back to where we came from."

"This is a test."

Susan's tiny smile grew a little wider. "Everything is a test."

Dipper nodded, and then began examining the shelves around them. The books were wholly unfamiliar, but there was something about them, something almost familiar. He took them a few shelves left and then right, and Dipper could almost see the shape of it. He took them 'right', for better of a better designation, until he passed a row of biographies of President Mary Todd Lincoln and took another right. The books became more familiar as he took his chosen path, although he paused to glance at biographies of President King, King Washington the First, and Quentin the Eternal.

And then he stopped two shelves away from where he knew the Gravity Falls Library to be.

"Are you lost?"

Dipper shook his head. "There's something wrong, here."

Susan slowed and stopped behind Dipper. The horse shifted nervously. “Show me.”

Dipper scanned his surroundings, trying to look at what had triggered his sense of wrongness. The library was illuminated with a uniform white light, one that seemed to originate from a single distant point. The shadows of the bookcases streamed away from it, overlapping with the occasional stool. There was one at the far end of the current bookcase, laying a shadow in the gap between opposite shelves.

“Um. That stool has two shadows-”

“Damn.” Susan grabbed Dipper’s arm and jerked him in the opposite direction. “Keep out an eye for that, Dipper. Avoid it like the plague.” She dodged around the near end of the bookshelves, eyes scanning the ground constantly.

“What is that?”

“Vashta Nerada. Piranhas of the shadows. They’ll hide in your shadow and then strip you down to your skeleton. When something has two shadows - like that - it’s the only warning you’ll get. Now, run.”

“Away from Gravity Falls?”

“There are a lot of places better than being eaten by the Vashta Nerada,” Susan panted. “Left!”

“No, right!” Dipper dragged Susan along his way. Binky cantered gamely after them.

“Dipper, I’d like some insight in your plan here.”

“No time!” Dipper snapped. He'd seen the hint of something familiar, and the barest inkling of how to use it to direct them somewhere safer, but taking the time to explain would just get them killed. He glanced down another set of bookshelves, swearing when he saw a shadow stretching between them. And then he saw his salvation. “This way!”

They bolted down another gap, this one clear of extraneous shadows, but, as it turned out, full of a brick wall. There were very familiar books lining the shelves next to it. Dipper closed his eyes and prayed that tricks out of Harry Potter sometimes worked in the real world.

He didn’t collide with a brick wall, but the Mystery Shack had so many hat stands, statues, and display cases that a collision of some sort had been inevitable. The horse made things only marginally worse, as he seemed to avoid the most fragile displays. In fact, most of the damage was caused by Dipper careening into a jewelry case full of protective amulets.

“Dipper! That better not be anything valuable! And don’t think you can sneak another pet into this house; the pig’s bad enough!”

Susan gave Dipper a narrow-eyed glance before making a subdued gesture. When the gesture ended, the glass was swept up and most of the fallen items set back in their proper places. Susan winked at Dipper. “Not quite perfect marks, but I’m impressed.”

“Does that mean I’m going to have another test?”

“Well, sort of.” Susan gave Dipper a gentler smile. “All I can do is ask if she’s willing to teach you, and she might not decide one way or another until she meets you.”

Dipper snorted. “Indecisive?”

Susan shook her head. “Quite the opposite. She’s one of the best, and she’ll only take you if she thinks you’re worth her time.”

“And what if she doesn’t like me?”

“Then you weren’t meant to be taught by the best.”

Susan jumped astride her horse. “Good luck, Dipper. If Mama Odie’s right, you’re going to need it.” The horse crouched, and leapt, leaving nothing but a set of smouldering hoofprints in the floor.

Dipper looked down at the cooling hoofprints in the linoleum and shrugged. He supposed he might avoid getting in trouble for the mess if he convinced Grunkle Stan he could pass these off as the Devil’s footprints. He’d have to shift the good-luck charms, maybe pass them off as anti-possession amulets-

Dipper paused, startled by the realization that _he was thinking like Grunkle Stan_.

It wasn’t so bad, he decided, in small doses. However, now was not the time. He wandered from the gift shop and into the living space. When passing Grunkle Stan in the living room, he waved.

“I was thinking you could pass the tracks burned into the floor as the Devil’s footprints or something. Tell me what I need to do to put it all together. I’m going to bed.”

He threw himself into bed upstairs, staring at the ceiling. He was beginning to suspect he was in over his head. He couldn’t say what he’d expected, but he thought deep down he’d probably thought there’d be more reading and practical potion-making, and less running for his life.

Of course, Dipper realized, he’d never really asked the old witch what it meant to be a witch. He had a vague idea it probably meant using magic for the greater good, but it was a mystery to him. The woman Susan wanted to teach him would probably dock points for that.

“Hey! Watcha doing?”

Dipper glanced up at Mabel, who was bending over his head, grinning widely.

“Thinking.”

She rapped his forehead. “Nothing depressing, I hope!”

“Just…” Dipper folded his arms. “I don’t know what I’m doing, here. With witchcraft and all.”

Mabel chortled. “You think any of us with our weird powers do? This whole ‘master of the mental arts’ thing doesn’t come with instruction booklets. And Norman’s told me he’s been winging it his whole life. At least you’re going to get teachers out of this. Have you met them, anyway?”

“Nah. I think they’re still testing me.”

“For what?”

“You think I know?” Dipper scowled. “I don’t know what they’re looking for, and they all seem to like cryptic comments. The most useful thing I learned was that Bill Cipher’s been watching me, and that’s hardly news.”

Mabel dropped onto the bed next to Dipper. “Pretty cool, though, you finding a mentor. The closest thing _I’ve_ got is watching what Bill can do, and the only guy Norman knows who’s got his talents passed over ages ago.”

Dipper glanced over at Mabel, who was almost frowning. “You’re not...mad at me, are you?”

“Haha, that’s stupid!” Mabel punched Dipper’s arm. “Look, you’re trying to improve yourself! Some people see talented artists and resent them; you’re trying to learn how to draw! Maybe someday you’ll be able to stuff none of us can, and that’ll be awesome! Especially if you find a way to turn Gideon into a frog. You should make sure you learn how to do that.”

“It seems like it might be easier to make him _think_ he’s a frog.” Mabel’s grin went wide and wicked, and Dipper realized what a terrible mistake he’d made. “Mabel, that’s probably not a good idea.”

“It’s a _wonderful_ idea, Dipper.” Mabel turned a beatific smile on him. “Just you watch - the next time he tries to make trouble, bam! I’m gonna give him a mind wedgie.”

Dipper tried to console himself with the knowledge she probably wouldn’t do something like that to anyone who didn’t deserve it.

It did, however, leave him worried about just what he’d be learning when a teacher finally showed up.


	6. Chapter 6

Norman was set to arrive in Gravity Falls, to live under Grunkle Stan's allegedly watchful eye for a month and a half, the next day. Dipper was all but floating around the gift shop; he suspected even Mabel was a little sick of his cheery mood.

Grunkle Stan seemed oblivious to it, or at least didn't acknowledge it, which Dipper had learned wasn't the same thing at all. So it was with his usual gruffness that he pulled Dipper out of running inventory in the stockroom.

"You got to get rid of this old broad," Grunkle Stan growled. "She's wandering around _touching_ and asking _very pointed_ questions about the merchandise. I told her to leave, Dipper, and she gave me this _look_." He shuddered. "Anyway, I've decided rowdy senior citizen wrangling is your responsibility. I'll check on you in an hour." He then retreated - no, _fled_ \- into the living quarters.

Dipper thus emerged onto the floor with some trepidation.

There was a woman browsing among the wares. She wore a black dress and battered cloak over it, and wore her grey hair in a bun twisted so tightly he wondered if it was welded on. She wasn't tall, even for an old lady, but she stood ramrod straight, and as she walked, it was with such a sense of self-assurance that he didn't doubt men twice her height would remember her being tall. As she turned at the ceramic angels, she paused and looked at Dipper.

The eye of Bill Cipher looked right through you, giving you the feeling of being picked apart by gaze alone. This gaze, a sharp, clear blue, looked right into you, made marks, and sent a letter home to your parents explaining that you weren't living up to your potential.

The face around the gaze was as ironset and uncompromising as every other aspect of the woman, lined with worry and set in an unimpressed frown. She had the look of the sort of woman who made news being a hundred and twenty and still mountain climbing.

From the front, Dipper also noted the presence of a white kitten curled up on the woman's head, all but invisible when concealed by her bun from the rear.

"Where's your hat?" Dipper blurted.

The woman's frown deepened into a momentary scowl. "I was told it would attract notice. That people around here don't _respect_ witches. I daresay I could teach them a thing or two about that." Her expression flickered, almost revealing a smile. "I certainly put a little respect for witches in your...uncle."

"Great-uncle. Um. We call him Grunkle Stan."

"Hm. And what made you think I've got a hat?"

Dipper wanted to say his gut, that looking at this woman, she couldn't be anything other than a witch, but Susan had been unimpressed by that explanation. "Grunkle Stan wouldn't kick out anyone he didn't think he had the remotest chance of selling something to."

"That's not why," the woman said sharply. "Those are second thoughts. No, you looked at this old woman and thought, now she, _she's_ a witch." She smiled for real this time, although the expression was subdued. "Even without my hat. There's people who can't imagine someone without a hat can't be a witch."

Dipper nodded, but he felt a tiny bit adrift. "You said second thoughts?"

"Thinking about what you're thinking," the witch replied. "Then there's third and fourth thoughts, and then it gets a bit technical." She paused, thinking. "Now you saw me and thought I was a witch. And then you asked yourself why you thought I was a witch. If you were good at third and fourth thoughts, you'd wonder if those were really the reasons, or if you just saw an old lady in black and thought, that's what a witch should look like."

"That makes me sound like a bad person."

The witch snorted. "It makes you a person. Second and third and fourth thoughts teach you how you think. They tell you why you make decisions the way you do. Once you get good at them, you might start thinking before you act."

Dipper's nose wrinkled as he considered this. It sounded pretty boring. "That sounds like psychology."

"It's headology. You can't change the way people think, especially if they're too stubborn or proud to do so. But if you know how they work, you can nudge them one way or another." She shook her head. "You don't have to learn it from me, Dipper Pines. But headology's what I was taught, and it's what I'll teach you if you want to learn to be a witch."

Susan had said she was going to find the best for Dipper. Mama Odie had thought he needed this. So he steeled himself and nodded. "I'd like to learn from you, Miss..."

"Mistress Weatherwax to you," she said. "Now come on, I want to get a feel for this place."

"Um, I'm supposed to be working."

Mistress Weatherwax gave Dipper a sharp look. "If you think this isn't going to be hard work, Dipper Pines, you're going to get a nasty surprise." And then she swept out of the Mystery Shack as if that was the end of it. She probably thought it was, Dipper considered as he hurried after her.

The first thing she did wasn't talking about magic, or oaths, or even headology. She demanded Dipper tell her, show her, Gravity Falls. He spent most of the rest of the day touring the town with her, telling her about the people, the legends, and the various terrifying things he'd faced there.

Eventually, he brought her to the diner, and ordered her a cup of tea. She drank it with an alarmingly loud slurping, smirking at the people nearest them that scowled at her. "So tell me. You wander this town, looking for monsters and mysteries. Why? Because they're there?"

She set her cup down and set that penetrating gaze on him, and Dipper knew this was the test. "Well, sure, that's what got me interested in all the stuff around here. But I realized Grunkle Stan was right. The stuff here is dangerous. People spent years wandering around without a clue about any of it, and now...

"There's a demon - this guy called Bill Cipher. He's up to something, toying with my life - with other people's lives - like they're puppets. He's messing around in _my town_ , and I won't let that happen."

Mistress Weatherwax held her gaze on Dipper for a very long time after he finished his speech. At long last, she nodded. "Witchcraft isn't about power, Dipper Pines. I think you know that, because if you wanted power you'd be talking to a wizard. It's about people. Where I come from, a witch is the - the very important part of the community. A witch help those that asks, and those that don't. A witch keeps...balance. Edge witchery, young Magrat always called it. When it comes down to it, a witch makes...hard choices, decisions no one else should have to make." For the first moment since he'd met her, Mistress Weatherwax looked old, worn. Almost as soon as he noticed it, however, she straightened again, eyes bright and alive. "Witches always stand on the edge - the edge of the real and the unreal, the edge of magic and the mundane, the edge of today and tomorrow, the edge of life and death."

It was a weighty proposition. Dipper let her words sink into him. His first thoughts were - it's too much. His second was - too much _what_? Other thoughts mingled together, and he knew he was panicking at the thought of the sort of responsibility Mistress Weatherwax said being a witch - a good witch - entailed. It was, he realized with a shock, very much like his panic with respect to Norman. He stood on the edge of something enormous, and he didn't know whether he should take that final step.

Tied up in all of that, he knew, was the fear that he _had_ to do this, that without it, the next time they ran into Bill Cipher, the demon would flatten them.

"What if there's no choice?"

"Then you're no witch," Mistress Weatherwax snapped. "Part of being a witch is knowing there's _always a choice_. The rest of it is accepting the consequences of the choices you make. I choose every day to be who I am, Dipper Pines. If you ever learn to do that, you'll be a witch to rival me. Now, I think that's enough for today. I'll see you bright and early tomorrow."

"But-" Dipper cut himself off before he could voice the thought. Telling Mistress Weatherwax he wanted to spend time with Norman would just incite the question of whether he chose to submit to Mistress Weatherwax's training or to goof off with his boyfriend.

And the answer was that he wanted to know what she knew, to hold herself with such self-confidence that he suspected she didn't need magic to do anything she wanted. And if he wanted that, he had to choose the work that would go into it.

"But...?" Mistress Weatherwax prompted.

"I was going to say something unproductive," Dipper replied. "I decided not to."

Mistress Weatherwax's smile was almost approving. "Well. Then until tomorrow."

When Dipper returned to the Mystery Shack, Grunkle Stan was behind the counter. He looked up and his default scowl...softened. “Hey, kid. Lock up the door behind you.”

Dipper did so, and Grunkle Stan slipped from behind the counter. He patted Dipper on the shoulder. “Can we talk, kiddo?”

“Um...this isn’t about sex, is it? I think I’ve had that talk more than I really need to.”

Grunkle Stan laughed and patted Dipper’s back. “Nah. I’m just...your parents expect me to keep an eye on you, Dipper. And, uh, Soos mentioned you were taking up witchcraft, and I gotta make sure you’re not in, ah, a gang or anything. Are you?”

“I’m fine, Grunkle Stan. I...to be honest, I’m getting pretty deep in all this supernatural stuff. I know you’ve told us time and time again that it’s dangerous, but-”

“You think I don’t know that? Kid, I’m not stupid. I’m not oblivious.” Grunkle Stan glanced up, out toward Gravity Falls. “Someday, you’re going to have to make do without me around to protect you. I knew it was never going to be by keeping your head down. Look, just...you’re a good kid. Better than me, anyway. So don’t let all this shit change you. And remember: never sell anything at a loss.”

“Um, sure.”

“Alright, get in the kitchen and help us heat up dinner.”

Dipper remained silent through most of dinner; he found he couldn’t think of what to think about Grunkle Stan’s acceptance of what he was doing. He’d grown used to worrying what Grunkle Stan would think about his escapades. Was he growing up, or was there something else driving Grunkle Stan’s casual discussion of the supernatural?

He brought it up to Norman that night.

Norman shrugged. “I don’t know what makes your uncle tick. But he’s a smart guy. I wouldn’t second-guess what makes him think you can deal with this on your own. But it sounds like you’re going to be busy when I get there.”

Dipper winced. “Sorry. I know you’re out here to spend time with me. I could-”

“You’re not going to trade this chance just to hang with me,” Norman said, and it wasn’t a judgment, but rather a simple statement of fact. “She can’t keep you busy all summer. I’m sure we’ll catch some movies, a dinner or two, some time out under the stars.”

“But that’s the point; I can’t just ask her for time off. God, this is going to be so shitty for you. I’m sorry-”

Norman shook his head, chuckling. “Relax. Look, I’ll find a way to amuse myself. Mabel can find plenty for us to do. Or I could hang out and get to know your other friends around here. I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know why you’re not mad.”

“Mad at you for investigating the paranormal? I’d be angry all the time, if that were the case. Look, this is something you need to do. I’m not going to be mad. So promise me you’ll keep your mind on that, and I’ll worry about finding time together. Okay?”

Dipper nodded. “Yeah - sure.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As it wasn't in the original tags, I wanted to note the addition of one - mentions of domestic violence (nothing is happening to either of the boys, I promise)

The next week and a half were among the most strenuous of Dipper's life. At Mistress Weatherwax's insistence, Dipper traveled the town and...did work. Weeding, repairs, watering, talking Old Man McGuckett out of building a cybernetic spider to raze the high school, whatever.

Dipper stopped a few times, contemplating complaining to Mistress Weatherwax; each time he did, however, he saw her standing with the current client, head bent in serious conversation. She left them with bottles, something that looked suspiciously like chiropractic, and small words of wisdom, and Dipper realized she was working, too.

He began watching, and listening, more closely, and heard her perscribe _sucra agua_ for Miss Winters, who always thought she was dying, explain to ninety-year-old Dirk Chamberfield, who had been smoking since he was seven, that black licorice had superior calming properties over nicotine, once he got over the shakes that switching one for the other would cause, and tell Mrs. Wayne to let her daughter Jen sleep with a fireplace poker to fight monsters.

He was beginning to see what Mistress Weatherwax had said about headology. It was truth from another point of view. Sugar water she thought was medicine _would_ cure Miss Winter's imagined ailments. Once he got through the worst of his nicotine withdrawal, Mr. Chamberfield would probably find a replacement habit just as calming. And, as a firm believer of the creatures that stalked the night of Gravity Falls, he could approve of making sure a child had protection.

He was still mulling this over when they knocked at the Marsdens' door. Macy Marsden, weary and pale, opened the door. She gave Dipper and Mistress Weatherwax a wary look.

"Yes?"

"I'm terribly sorry. We must have the wrong house. I didn't mean to be a bother."

Mistress Weatherwax turned and stalked from the house, her stance, if possible, becoming even straighter. He could see the shifts in stance and attitude that made her seem even taller than usual. "Where does her husband work?" Mistress Weatherwax demanded.

"Uh..." Dipper wracked his brain for the information. "I think the sports store."

Mistress Weatherwax nodded. "Then come on. You had to see this side of the work eventually."

When they entered Singh's Sports, Mistress Weatherwax standing tall, everyone turned to stare at them. Mistress Weatherwax seemed not to notice as she led Dipper along to the fishing rods. She very carefully and methodically began picking each one up, turning it over in her hands, examining every inch, and pausing every few moments to say, "Aha," or "Oh," or an ominous "Hmm."

It took five minutes and her third rod before someone came over to them, a tall, blocky, red-faced man in the pale yellow shirt worn by the employees. He had a nametag that said 'Marsden'.

"Can I help you?"

Mistress Weatherwax turned her gaze on Mr. Marsden, and to his credit, he didn't flinch under the force of the unwavering stare. Her examination took just too long to be polite, but not so long that Mr. Marsden might just walk away.

"I think I have things well in hand," she replied.

He nodded aimlessly and walked away, and Mistress Weatherwax led Dipper away to the team sports section. She went on to examine soccer balls while Mr. Marsden re-priced the footballs. When he went to check the inventory of the pads, Mistress Weatherwax took Dipper to examine the cups with the same exacting, focused determination she did everything else. When he moved on to the hunting supplies, Mistress Weatherwax picked up and tested every single hunting call.

At last the man stormed to Mistress Weatherwax, face bordering on purple. "Is there a problem, madam?"

Mistress Weatherwax turned, and her expression was one of complete disinterest, flat and barely focusing on Mr. Marsden. "I'm sorry?"

"You've been following me around, lady," he snapped in a hushed voice, scowling as he did.

"I've been examining your merchandise for my grandson, here," she said evenly.

His face twisted in fury. "Bullshit. You've been watching me, haven't you?"

Mistress Weatherwax tilted her head, examining Mr. Marsden with a face that had morphed back to the focused, interested gaze, the one that looked inside you and found everything wanting. "That concerns you, Madison Marsden, people watching you. There are things you do when you think no one can see you, that you are desperate never to come to light. Do you think no one can _see_? Do you think that just because they do nothing about it, they don't _know_? Every eye in Gravity Falls judges you, Madison Marsden. To think otherwise is beyond foolish."

"You mouthy bitch," he growled, and raised his right hand.

It did not come down. Mr. Marsden's face was pale and his whole body trembling as Mistress Weatherwax held his gaze. His hand alone, held aloft and open-palmed, remained fixed in place, steady as a rock. It was no magic, Dipper knew, just the only response one could have in the face of Mistress Weatherwax's iron determination.

She turned away, back to the animal calls, and picked up a small black one. "Come on; I think we should get you a cup, too." She left Mr. Marsden behind as she walked; as they turned down into the next aisle, Mr. Marsden was still standing in place, his body still shaking, and no color left in his face.

The next day, Dipper found Mistress Weatherwax at the diner, sipping at a cup of tea at the counter while a middle-aged woman chattered at her.

"They say he roared out of town at three in the morning. Took everything he could get out of the house, so we made a few calls and Macy's staying with the Corduroys for a little while until we can help her get back on her feet."

"Well, I suppose that's for the best. A man like that..." Mistress Weatherwax shrugged. "Anyway, here's young Dipper." She rose, made a token protest when the woman offered to pay for her tea, and then led Dipper outside.

Dipper wanted to ask questions. The problem was he didn't know what to ask. He had a vague notion of what Mistress Weatherwax had seen in Macy's face and what she had seen in Mr. Marsden's soul, something about the sort of man who'd abandon his wife in the middle of the night.

But what Mistress Weatherwax had done, and why, eluded him.

So he took a deep breath. "What-"

"Some things shouldn't be tolerated. Sometimes a witch steps up because no one else will do what needs to be done. With Madison Marsden gone, people will step up and help Macy. They'll help her get back on her feet. And if they happen to suggest she stay with a family of big strong, people, who know how to respect women, and if they quietly think everyone's better off without Madison Marsden, they won't say it aloud."

"Did you...kill him?"

Mistress Weatherwax's face twisted. "That's the sort of thing you shouldn't be in the habit of doing. When you kill a man for the wickedness he's done, you have to decide what sort of wickedness deserves death. And then you start to wonder if you should try to get rid of the people with wickedness in their hearts. And eventually you decide everyone who stands against you is wicked, and soon everybody is against you. No, I didn't kill him. That man's going to remember for the rest of his life that there's a place where everyone knows his sins. And he's always going to wonder where I might turn up, and what I might have seen."

Dipper let that sink in for a minute. "That's...better than killing him, isn’t it?"

Mistress Weatherwax nodded, a satisfied smile gracing her lips. "Dead men can't learn."

On that note, Dipper decided to ask the one thing that had been on his mind for most of this week. "Do you actually know any magic?" Before Mistress Weatherwax could glare at him, he continued hurriedly. "I've seen what you can do without it, so I was wondering if - if that's what you did. Because, as useful, as awesome what you've been teaching me is, it's not...magic."

Mistress Weatherwax slowed, stepped aside from the center of the sidewalk, and gave Dipper a level, evaluative stare. "And what is magic, Dipper Pines?"

Dipper shook his head. "You're going to trick me into saying it's doing things with your mind or affecting the world around you with words and rituals and then you're going to go, 'ta-da, you've been learning magic'. I mean, can you do real magic?"

"I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. Tell me, Dipper Pines: what is magic _to me_?"

Mistress Weatherwax, Dipper decided, had concluded that because she had very little time in which to teach Dipper, that she'd just cram all the tests together and call that an education. So he thought, trying to look at everything Mistress Weatherwax had done over the time he'd known her. He'd never seen her use an ounce of magic, but-

"Magic's a tool. Like a shovel or a saw or a screwdriver. It's got to be difficult, or dangerous - or both. And you don't use it when you think there's a way to do it without magic, or when it's not the right tool. You wouldn't dig a hole with a screwdriver, right?"

Mistress Weatherwax nodded, so Dipper pressed forward. "And anyway, if you use magic for everything, you might forget there are ways to do things other than by magic."

Mistress Weatherwax's expression slipped. For a fraction of a second, her eyes flickered, widened, and she looked almost...surprised. It was abruptly cool and collected again, but Dipper himself felt a little shaken. He didn't think it was possible to surprise her.

"Well, then. I suppose I ought to teach you a little about magic. How many colors are there in a rainbow?"

Dipper's first thought was seven. His second, every color that can possibly exist. And his third...

"The last time I saw a rainbow was a few months ago. I had a - a weapon I needed - I'd decided was the best way to get rid of a demon. There was a rainbow that looked like it had...eight colors."

"Describe that color to me."

Dipper's words failed him at that. "It was really weird. Like a greenish-yellow...purple?"

Mistress Weatherwax smiled at Dipper. "Good. If you hadn't been able to tell me that, you wouldn't be ready for magic, although...I might have still said you'd have the makings of a good witch."

"So you'll teach me magic?"

Mistress Weatherwax looked down at Dipper over her nose, and shrugged. "Tomorrow. Today, go do what you like."

Dipper wasn't certain to feel disappointed or excited. He hadn't been able to spend an hour or two with Norman since he'd arrived. Mistress Weatherwax kept him busy from dawn until dusk, which left barely enough time to sleep before he had to be awake again. On the other hand, any delay in the part of this work he'd been really excited about felt like a setback.

Nevertheless, he did as Mistress Weatherwax had said, trudging back to the Mystery Shack. Norman was leaning on the counter, as nonchalant as Dipper had often tried to be, chatting with Wendy. He grinned abruptly when he saw Dipper, jogging across the shop to grab him in a quick hug and, after a moment, a peck on the lips. Dipper ducked his head to hide his flush, aware that Wendy could see them perfectly well.

"So, did the old witch let you out early? Or are you thoroughly witched?"

Dipper shoved Norman a little ways away. "i doubt that's what you call it."

"Blithe Hollow is second to Salem in all things witch," Norman retorted with a sly grin. "If I say graduating witch school is being witched, that's what it is."

"Fine." Dipper gave the empty store a quick scan. "Are you working here, or can you get out?"

"Not officially, so yes. I'm off the clock, Wendy!"

"Don't do anything I wouldn't!"

Norman rolled his eyes and grabbed Dipper's hand, dragging him out of the store. After about a minute after Norman tugged him into the forest, Dipper spoke up.

"Do you have a destination in mind, or were you going to dump my body out here for ignoring you for the last two weeks?"

"I keep telling you, I'm not mad. Frankly, I'm proud of you. You went out to learn this stuff and you're working really hard at it." Norman gave Dipper an conspiratorial wink. "Besides, I want to see what you mange to do _with_ magic, given what you've pulled off on your own already."

Dipper deliberately turned his face away as his cheeks reddened. "It's not all that impressive." He didn't know why Norman kept insisting he'd done anything noteworthy; just surviving all the crap he'd run into was hardly an adventure for the ages. Before Norman could start in on it, Dipper elbowed him in the side. "You're avoiding the question," he said. "Where are we going?"

"I just thought we'd get lost out here a bit, take some alone time." He winked.

Dipper grinned. Sure, it was possible they could get people to leave them alone for a bit if they asked (although Dipper wasn't certain; Grunkle Stan had showed a remarkable responsibility in insisting Norman take the couch rather than share a room with Dipper), but Norman apparently agreed that asking Dipper's sister leave them alone for...alone time was enough to kill any mood.

"Well, then, lead on."

Three hours later, Dipper slipped into the Shack ahead of Norman, hoping he could get upstairs before anyone saw-

"Hey, Dipper!" Mabel popped out from behind a postcard rack. "Are you done being witched, or did you sneak ou-" Her eyes widened and she leaned in close. "Dipper, you've got a hickey!"

Dipper groaned and let his head drop onto Mabel's shoulder. "Thank you, I _know_. I wanted to grab a sweater or something before anyone noticed and started commenting on it."

"Hey, Dipper, we're having tacos for - are you aware you have a big bruise on your neck?"

"Yes, I am perfectly aware I have a hickey, can you all please shut up about it?" A snigger from the direction of the counter made Dipper realize he'd shouted this last part. There was zero chance Grunkle Stan hadn't heard that. He groaned into Mabel's shoulder. "That's it, just kill me."

"Aw, Dipper, don't worry. No one here's going to judge you for exploring your sexuality."

Okay, Dipper resolved. New plan. He was going to kill his sister, instead.

"Now let's get you some concealer for that."

Or not. He could have done a lot worse than Mabel, all things considered.


	8. Chapter 8

“I hope you know we won’t be throwing around fireballs.” Mistress Weatherwax stood in the center of a wide clearing, arms folded in front of her. “For one thing, it requires more magic than either of us will ever see in our lifetime. For another, it’s a wasteful and boastful use of magic.”

“I...actually did know that,” Dipper replied. “So what kind of magic do you do?”

“Any that needs doing,” Mistress Weatherwax said. At Dipper’s glower, she gave him an even stare in response. “At its heart, magic is about intention. Incantations and rituals out of books are...useful, but in the end, getting things done is about standing at the right place at the right time and pushing.” She sucked at her teeth. “I don’t have time to teach you every little thing, I think you know that. I think you know that neither of us knows what’s coming, and that means teaching you this and that’s a waste of our time.”

Dipper nodded. “Yeah, yeah. But I thought maybe you’d show me like, a few actual...spells, to get me going?”

Mistress Weatherwax poked at her ear, twisting her finger around thoughtfully. “Well, there’s not much magic around here. The best I could do down here is Borrowing.”

Dipper felt something twist in his stomach, the vaguely sick feeling he got when he’d made a terrible mistake. He couldn’t identify the reason until he thought for just a second about what ‘Borrowing’ might mean.

“Does that...mean what it sounds like?”

Mistress Weatherwax frowned at Dipper. “It’s slipping inside a creature’s head, steering it around a bit-”

Fuck fuck fuck. Dipper lurched away from Mistress Weatherwax, heart racing. He had no idea what he could do against her; he didn’t pretend to imagine she was telling the whole truth when she said there wasn’t much she could do here.

STAY.

The words didn’t come as sound. They came as a punch to his brain, bypassing conscious thought; Mistress Weatherwax had said people acted before they thought, and Mistress Weatherwax’s command made the brain obey before he could consider otherwise.

She stepped around Dipper, rubbing at her throat gingerly. “Now just sit and think a moment, and tell me what made you panic, Dipper.”

Dipper shook his head. “Borrowing - that’s what Bill Cipher did to me. Kicked me right out of my body-”

Mistress Weatherwax’s hand clamped down on Dipper’s shoulder. “Dipper. There’s things about magic we usually leave people to decide for themselves, but you’re on the accelerated schedule, so here it goes. There’s no such thing as good magic or bad magic. You won’t find a witch who hasn’t bent a rule here or again, who hasn’t made the choice to do something others might...question. And here, it’s not just about what you intend - you can do a lot of harm intending to do good. It’s about the harm - and the good - you do. I never kick a creature out of its head. I use a light hand. I aim to make sure they don’t get hurt, and get fed, and that everyone knows to be a little careful around animals, in case they’ve got me riding inside.”

“So, what, it’s okay because you follow - rules?”

“No.” Mistress Weatherwax pulled Dipper’s head up so he was fixed with her gaze. “You think. You consider the consequences of everything you do.”

“You mean there’s no such thing as good magic or bad magic, just good people and bad people?”

Mistress Weatherwax snorted in amusement. “Sometimes I’m not sure there is such a thing as good people. But just because someone uses a tool badly doesn’t mean it’s a bad tool.”

She let go of Dipper and stood. “Alright, you want to see some magic? There’s a couple of places in this town that are glowing like - very bright things. There should be enough magic for me to show you - something.”

Dipper followed Mistress Weatherwax for a while, until he realized they were heading for the falls that had given Gravity Falls its name. He considered protesting, but realized that by definition, the places with the most magic were going to be the weirdest.

Still, the Falls was to Gravity Falls what Gravity Falls was the the rest of the country. People _remembered_ that, even when the Society of the Blind Eye was running around. _What_ , exactly, people remembered, was a bit of a mystery, but Dipper had promised Grunkle Stan never to go up there. 

He’d probably meant, ‘without proper supervision,’ and Dipper couldn’t think of more proper supervision than Mistress Weatherwax.

“Do you want me to take the lead? The way up is a little unintuitive.”

“It looked like there was a path straight up the cliff.”

Dipper looked at Mistress Weatherwax, who looked something north of eighty and rarely moved faster than a meander. He knew she would walk up that mist-slicked path at the same snail’s pace she took everything else, and would ask Dipper if _he_ needed help.

There was no way he was going to fall down in front of her.

Two hours later, panting from exertion, and suffering from a number of scrapes, Dipper crawled to the top of the waterfall after Mistress Weatherwax.

“Pride is the Weatherwax curse,” Mistress Weatherwax said from her perch at the very edge of the rocks, poised so she could see the river below, the lake, and even the Mystery Shack. She turned to face Dipper. “We never ask for help when we need it, and never accept it until we’ve been forced into it.”

Dipper let himself fall onto the stone, wondering if there was a point to trying to get up again. “I’m very grateful you’re choosing to share this piece of personal history with me, but I’m going to quietly die here.”

“Hm.” Mistress Weatherwax folded her arms, quietly examining the landscape.

Dipper sighed. He had an idea of another Weatherwax curse. “Do you have anything to help me recover from foolishly climbing a waterfall without help?”

Mistress Weatherwax offered Dipper a thin smile. “A friend of mine makes a salve to swear by - or at, possibly. She’s of the school that believes medicine needs to taste terrible or hurt.”

It would be mean to suggest that Mistress Weatherwax preferred just to give people things that looked like medicine; Dipper knew the thought was...at least half-inspired by his exhaustion.

Mistress Weatherwax handed down a small bottle. Dipper popped it open and smeared the foul-smelling salve on his scrapes. It stung like hyper-spider venom, but he presumed Mistress Weatherwax wouldn’t give him a vial of that.

“So, pretty magical up here, right?”

“It almost feels like home,” Mistress Weatherwax murmured. She down at Dipper, expression more somber than he’d expect from someone feeling nostalgic. 

“Mistress-”

“Call me Granny,” she said.

“Granny.” The word sounded strange in Dipper’s mouth. “You sound...worried.”

“Look at this!” She waved her arm at the river emptying into the waterfall.

Dipper sat up, turning to look at the river, the landscape beyond the waterfall. The air crackled with octarine, and the landscape looked...wild. Untamed. _Magical_.

“I never knew this was up here.”

“Look closer, Dipper.”

He did as directed, trying to see beyond what his eyes were telling him, and-

The river emerged from a spring several hundred yards away, rushing along a largely barren plateau before plunging down the falls. Beyond the spring, the barren stone gave way to the rising forest around it, blending into generic Oregon wilderness. But between them and the spring was...a window. A door. A crackling plane of octarine sliced through the landscape, creating a window that encompassed the entire scene beyond it.

“What does this mean?”

Granny shook her head. “I’ve heard of things like this. When a place is less - less _real_ than other places, the boundary between it and impossible things is...weak. Reality can - leak out, in a way, and other - things, leak in. There was a place, down near the sea, where-” She shrugged. “Things got a little...chancy.”

Dipper felt a surge of excitement at Granny’s declaration. The merest suggestion that there was an explanation for all of Gravity Falls’ weirdness, that he might be able to do something about it…

Well, it was scary, thinking that his adventuring days might be over. But if he could get rid of Gravity Falls’ supernatural problems, get rid of Bill Cipher - it’d be worth it.

“Could we close it? Would that fix everything in Gravity Falls?”

Granny gave Dipper a level stare along her nose. “I presume you mean its supernatural problems; nothing’s going to fix everything wrong with a place full of people. And even then...I couldn’t say. Sometimes these holes come because a place is strange. Sometimes the place is strange because of the hole. Still...almost no good can come of a hole in the world.” She looked down at Dipper, appraising. “Someone tied to this place could hold it closed. It’s a job for life, though.”

Dipper stared at the shimmering octarine window, shivering. Watching the verdant landscape beyond, he could almost feel the calculating, alien intelligence lurking within. If Granny was right, the things in that landscape were impossibilities, waiting until Gravity Falls was unreal enough to support them.

He looked up at Granny and nodded. “I’ll do it.”

Granny gave Dipper an approving nod. “Good. Do you have a knife on your person?”

Dipper handed her his utility knife, a present from Wendy on his last birthday, and Granny spent close to an hour scratching weird, runic symbols on each side of the octarine barrier. She then stepped up to Dipper and held the knife out to him.

“Some magic is best marked in blood,” she said.

Dipper stared at the many runes cut into the rock. “I don’t think I have enough blood.”

Granny waved her hand (the one without the knife) vaguely. “You just need to stick it on one or two signs; they’ll hold the rest of it together.”

“Like a keystone!”

Granny gave him a level stare. “Is that something that supports the weight of the things next to it?”

“Pretty much exactly.”

Granny mouthed the word a few times before nodding. “Well. Just a bit, then.” She paused and then met Dipper’s gaze. “Do you freely and without reservation give me this blood?”

Dipper nodded hurriedly. “Yeah. Just get it over with.”

Granny sliced the blade across Dipper’s ring finger, stepped forward, and drew the tip along the lines she’d carved at the center of the octarine wall. She then returned to his side and held out the knife. “Do you freely and without reservation give me this blood?”

“Yes.”

The second cut was a little deeper, and Dipper hissed from the pain. Granny stepped over the barrier and dragged the bloody knife in the sign opposite the first bloodied one. She stepped back, examining the barrier and the carvings in the ground, and nodded decisively. 

“That should do it.”

Dipper stepped closer to the signs, frowning at them. He couldn’t see how she’d done magic. “What do these symbols even mean?”

“They say ‘stay out’ in every language I know,” Granny said. “And a few I don’t. The one in the middle’s Oggham; the blood’s to make it stick a little better.”

“And where’s the magic?”

Granny poked Dipper’s chest with one long finger. “You, Dipper Pines. As long as you live, a bit of you’ll watch over this place. And one day you’ll take an apprentice, and they’ll put a little blood in to keep this door closed.”

It sounded so official, and then-

“An apprentice?” Dipper asked. “I don’t know enough to teach anyone!”

“Even I was a novice, once, Dipper Pines. But I came up here to teach you magic, didn’t I, not to dig around in the dirt. Come here.”

She reached behind Dipper’s right ear and pulled out a quarter.

He stared at it for a few moments, his mind blank, before he started to laugh. It took him several minutes to calm down, but when he did, he was still..giddy, maybe.

“Can you show it to me again?”

She wasn’t conjuring anything out of thin air. She had a few quarters on her. But it was magic, a stupid little use of it that couldn’t hurt anyone and let Dipper see what it meant to tug on the world. And, he thought quietly, maybe she hadn’t been exaggerating about how little magic there was, even sitting next to a weird magical leak into the world.

After a few more repetitions, Dipper thought he had it. “I think...I’ve learned enough I can go out and...try things myself.”

“Mess things up, you mean,” Granny said.

“Probably, until I get the hang of it.” Dipper took a deep breath. “You’re not from around here. I know that. And you can’t spend much more time here. So thanks for taking the time, and taking a chance on me. I hope...I’ll be a credit to you.”

“Be a credit to yourself, first.” Granny gave Dipper a stern glare, but he could see approval in it, a quiet sort of pride that she’d had a hand in what he was becoming.

“I - I will.” Dipper’s chest felt a little tight. He might not have known her that long, but he knew Granny had done a great deal for him, and he didn’t want to say good-bye. “Are you sure you can’t stay?”

“Things back home will got to pot if i’m not around to keep an eye on things.” Granny stepped back from Dipper and gave him a careful bow, the kitten on her head scrambling to hold on as she did so. Dipper returned the gesture, and when he straightened, he saw Granny smiling.

“I - I think I might still be a little sore from climbing up here. Do you think you could maybe help me down the other path? So I don’t slip or anything?”

Granny’s smile didn’t quite soften, but it did become a little more pronounced. She held out her elbow to Dipper. “Well. If you need help, it would be remiss of me to let you try going down alone.”

There wasn’t much left to say, so they walked down the falls, and then, by unspoken agreement, to the edge of the strange, folded space in the woods, in silence. Before she stepped back into the folded space of the woods, the way she would take home, she held Dipper at arms’ length, and nodded.

“You’re on your own, now, Dipper Pines.”

Dipper smiled back at her. “I’m not really. I’ve got people I can ask for help. I promise I’ll always think about what I’m doing.”

“Good. Good luck.”

Dipper waited until long after Granny had moved out of sight, when the night had truly enveloped him, before heading home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha, sorry about the delay on this. Stuff's been a little crazy. We're getting almost to the end of 'The Education of Dipper Pines', though, so I hope you've been enjoying the ride.


	9. Chapter 9

"So, are you a full-fledged witch, now?" Granny Weatherwax had been gone for a week, giving Dipper the time he'd expected to spend with Norman. Dipper had wrangled an afternoon off for a movie and dinner (well, burgers and shakes), and they'd ended up on the roof of the Mystery Shack.

Dipper shrugged. "I don't think I've learned all there is to know about this stuff. But I think I've learned everything Granny wanted me to learn."

Norman nodded. "She's a big proponent of pushing you in the deep end, right?"

"You make it sound sort of mean. Granny's - well, she's not mean like that. I think she believes this is the sort of thing I need to practice without some old - old person hovering over my shoulder. It's not like she could show me a lot of magic. I think she comes from a place where magic is easier. And anyway, she thinks being a witch is mostly about...tending to a community."

"Sort of like what you've been doing already, right?"

Dipper shook his head, remembering the iron in Granny's voice when she'd spoken to Mr. Marsden, removing poison from the community. "Not even remotely. There's more to it than investigating the supernatural. It's about...I don't know. Sort of like you and the ghosts in Blithe Hollow. Keeping in touch. Nurturing the - the community. I think she's a midwife, too." He briefly scowled at the few conversations when Granny had alluded to Dipper acting in the same capacity. He was going to be calling 911 in any situation where someone might call on him to do that.

Norman nodded. "Cool." Silence reigned for several moments before Norman took a deep breath. "That's not all, is it? Wendy said you were up at the falls. She thought...it was something worth worrying about."

And Dipper paused. He didn't know how to explain what they'd found, or what they'd done up there. He wasn't certain he understood himself.

“There’s a hole up there. It was - well, it wasn’t making the weirdness around here any better. Granny had me - well, asked me - to try to keep it closed. I...don’t think it’s going to help in the long run.”

"Dipper?"

Dipper wanted to be reassuring so Norman wouldn't sound so worried. But he'd forced his eyes open, and he knew he couldn't try to shoulder it alone, like Granny did.

"Something's coming. Something big. Something bad."

"Bill Cipher?"

Dipper shook his head. "I think he's a harbinger or a - a symptom. People...they're like the Society of the Blind Eye. They try to ignore things that fall outside their experience. But they're starting to see."

Norman shifted closer, wrapping his arm around Dipper's shoulders. "Look, it's going to be okay. You got me and Mabel and - I've got Coraline's number around here somewhere."

Dipper laughed, but the sound was ragged and strained. He'd been trying to hide this background awareness of the coming storm for months, now, and he didn't know how to stem the flow of that accumulated stress now that he'd opened up. "What are four kids going to do? The magic's coming back, Norman, all the ridiculous things you find in books, not just here, but everywhere.”

“So? We’re not the only people who deal with this sort of stuff. I bet you never thought you’d meet someone like me. And then there was Coraline.”

“And what? We should put together a Mystery Machine and run around the country hunting ghosts?”

“Maybe.” Norman fell back with a thump. “I mean, not until we’re old enough to drive.”

Dipper didn’t tell Norman he thought they didn’t have that long. But Norman did make him think…

“Norman. When you were younger, did you think you were the only one? That you were alone?”

Norman sat up, frowning. “Of course I did. Everyone in town thought I was a freak; it wasn’t until I talked to Mr. Penderghast that I even knew there was anyone like me-”

“But even then, it was just you - and your friends. Did you ever think there were other kids out there who had to put up with the - well, not the same stuff, but all this weirdness? Think about it - we could start a support group. _I_ could, to make sure kids know that there are big things out there, that other people in other places have to deal with weirdness like theirs. We could make a website - Grenda could help!”

Norman was watching Dipper, half-smiling, approving, Dipper thought. “You’d think someone would have done this before.”

Dipper shook his head. “When people say ‘someone should’, they mean, ‘someone else should’. People like you - like us - get wrapped up in our little worlds. Coraline’s neck-deep in things like faeries and talking animals. You’ve got your ghosts. Me and Mabel are stuck here in Gravity Falls. I bet there are people out there dealing with - I don’t know, mad scientists or the effects of living near magic toxic waste - who didn’t imagine there are other problems out there. As a witch, I need to accept that ‘someone should’ means ‘ _I_ should’, because if no one else has, and I don’t, it might never happen.”

He was slightly out of breath when he finished. Norman was watching him evenly, still smiling. “Look at you,” Norman murmured. “All responsible and forward-thinking.” Norman patted him on the shoulder. “Our little team leader.”

The rest of the evening was consumed with making plans with Norman, Mabel, and Soos, dragging in Grenda and Candy for technical assistance. It was fun - a great break from the rest of his summer. But Dipper didn’t forget why they were doing this. It took time - about another few weeks - for them to finish their work, interrupted by adventures, enforced relaxation, and dates.

At last, the work was done. And the first thing Dipper did when they site went live was to make a phone call.

“Information? I want Amity Park, Michigan. Fenton residence.”


	10. Chapter 10

Mabel groaned and threw a pillow in Dipper’s direction. “God, Dipper, stop playing solitaire and go to sleep!”

“Just a minute!” Dipper, hunched under the covers on his bed, waved vaguely toward Mabel’s bed.

“Some boys would be down there trying to catch some snuggle time with their boyfriends,” Mabel muttered. “Mine is playing cards.”

Dipper tried to shut out Mabel’s voice and focus on the cards. He’d found directions for making a deck of Tarot cards - to predict the future in the way Mama Odie had. He’d cut and painted the cards himself, and now was trying to see something of use, to see some hint as to what was coming. It was supposed to be a simple layout, showing the influences of the past, present, and future, but it seemed to be going terribly wrong. No matter what he did, when he drew the card representing the future, he’d fumble and end up dropping a whole bunch of cards in front of him.

They were always the same cards, and he’d laid them out in front of him, trying to make sense of them.

Death, The Magician, The Hanged Man, The Lovers, The Devil, The Fool, The Tower.

Every guide had a slightly different interpretation of what each card meant, but Dipper had an idea of what this set meant.

Trouble.


	11. Chapter 11

There are people who believe in a place. They believe in a dark and miserable place. The details vary, based on where they come from, what they value. But the upshot is that this place is...misery made real.

For ease of nomenclature, let us call it ‘Hell’.

So, an entity is drifting through Hell, traveling, untouched by the horrors that dwell there. For there are things of which those that dwell in Hell, witnesses and, some, connoisseurs, to the deepest depravities of the universe, are afraid.

There are no illusions in Hell, but nevertheless, the entity appears other than it is. Even to those with the keenest sight, the deepest understanding of how to see what is really _there_ , the entity is little more than a projection, a tiny fraction of its reality painted upon the world.

It approaches a place where a debt is being collected. The things here that deal and trade with mortals are not evil; they see value and morals in ways all but orthogonal to the way mortals do. Nevertheless, the debtor is suffering.

The entity comes to this place and speaks briefly with the creditors. A transaction takes place. And then the entity approaches the debtor.

"Hey, Big Easy. I need you to come with me for a minute. You game?"

The man shakes his head. "I'm a little tied up, right now."

"Oh, man, we can fix _that_." The world shifts, and then the entity and the debtor are seated at a table for two at a charming cafe in New Orleans.

"Nice place, isn't it? It's one of the oldest eateries in New Orleans, you know. Founded back in the thirties by a young lady...Tiana, I think her name was. But I'm babbling. You get something to eat; I bet you haven't had a bite in, what, seventy, eighty years?"

"I'm not hungry." There is tension at the table as the man glares at the restaurant surrounding them, the waiters in impeccable suits and dresses, moving in well-oiled patterns among the happy patrons. 

"Suit yourself." The entity turns to the debtor. "Now, I think we ought to discuss a few things."

"I think you need to tell me who you are," the debtor demands. "I'm no fool-"

"Ending up where you did, Big Easy, there's some lively debate we could have on the subject. But never let it be said I didn't observe the niceties. I'm the one they told you _never_ to deal with."

The debtor stares at the entity, and though he had lived in torment for...quite some time, he finds there are thing he fears worse than an eternity of that. He swallows. "One might say that's a poor way to start a business deal."

"Eh, what do I care? I know how this conversation ends. Now, look, I want you to do something for me. Three somethings, actually."

The debtor chuckles. "I'm not in a position to do anyone any favors. And not inclined to add any additional debt to my ledger."

"Oh, that? I picked up your tab on our way out. You're a free man."

The man slams his hands on the able and lurches over it, glaring at the entity. "You're lying. Why would you do that? Is that how it works? You hold this over my head for the rest of my life, make me a slave worse than I ever was?"

"Calm down, Big Easy. This is a freebie. A show of good faith. You can walk away at any time and you won't owe me a thing."

The man sits slowly, failing to notice that the restaurant is somehow dim, pale, and that no one has noticed his outburst. "So what is it you want me to do?"

"Oh, nothing trying. I'll stay on top of any debts you incur along the way. But maybe you need a little more incentive. When you're done, if you've done this right, you'll be free and clear the rest of your life."

"Stop talking in circles and tell me what you mean."

"Men like you, Big Easy, have to scrape and beg and borrow to perform miracles. It grinds you up, doesn't it? I aim to live in a world where men like you, who have the knowing of things, can perform those miracles beholden to nobody. A world of fire and wonder. And you can help me do it."

Silence holds for a long moment. If this man had learned anything from his failures, if he had learned anything about the difference between what you want and what you need, he would have stood up and walked away.

But he never learned, and in any case this conversation was carefully constructed to lead to only one conclusion.

He sticks out a hand to the entity. "I'm in."

"You won't regret this, Big Easy."

He would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fire and Wonder will continue with 'Miracle Man'

**Author's Note:**

> The third story of Fire and Wonder is here; Dipper's exploring his boundaries and trying out new things, yay! 
> 
> I knew the day would come I would have to officially post this being canon-divergent, and that day came around "He Is Not What He Seems". It definitely adds some new possibilities I hadn't previously considered for later stories, but (spoilers!) the machine in my story does not have the same purpose the one in canon does, I'll tell you that.
> 
> Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy this story; it's a bit of a change of pace from the previous ones, but definitely important.
> 
> Toodles!


End file.
